Note 91 — Chapter X · IONIC PORTION OF HELLAS. — ATHENS BEFORE SOLON.
Reading edition
Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, vol. i, pp. 317-337. Varro’s language on that point is clear: “Ut in hominibus quædam sunt cognationes et gentilitates, sic in verbis. Ut enim ab Æmilio homines orti Æmilii et gentiles, sic ab Æmilii nomine declinatæ voces in gentilitate nominali.” Paul. Diacon. p. 94. “Gentilis dicitur ex eodem genere ortus, et is qui simili nomine appellatur,” etc. See Becker, Handbuch der Römischen Alterthümer, part 2, abth. 2, p. 36.
The last part of the definition ought to be struck out for the Grecian gentes. The passage of Varro does not prove the historical reality of the primitive father, or genarch, Æmilius, but it proves that the members of the gens believed in him.
Dr. Wilda, in his learned work, “Das Deutsche Strafrecht,” (Halle, 1842,) dissents from Niebuhr in the opposite direction, and seems to maintain that the Grecian and Roman gentes were really distant blood relations (p. 123). How this can be proved, I do not know: and it is inconsistent with the opinion which he advances in the preceding page (p. 122), very justly,—that these quasi families are primordial facts in early human society, beyond which we cannot carry our researches. “The farther we go back in history, the more does the community exhibit the form of a family, though in reality it is not a mere family. This is the limit of historical research, which no man can transgress with impunity,” (p. 122).